Semua Bab Chosen By The Don: Bab 1 - Bab 9

Chapter 1 — The Knock"I can't do this!"The words were already climbing up my throat before he'd even finished talking — before the offer was fully out of his mouth, before I understood I was standing in a stranger's study being asked to trade the rest of my life for a number I couldn't even picture. I didn't say it out loud. Not yet. I just stood there with my heart slamming against my ribs, thinking it on a loop, I can't do this, I can't do this! I can't do this! While a man I'd known for exactly four minutes waited for my answer like he already knew what it would be.But that was still hours away from where this actually started.The eviction notice sat on the kitchen table, face up, where I'd dropped it three hours ago and not touched it since.I was at the sink when I heard the car — a low growl that didn't belong on a street where half the porch lights had been out since spring and nobody had filed a complaint, because what was the point? My hands were pruned from the dishwa

I didn't sleep after that text. I lay there with the phone face-down on my chest, the glow of it gone but the words still burned into the back of my eyes — ask about Sofia — until the sky outside went from black to the dull gray that passed for dawn in my neighborhood.The papers arrived by courier at nine, delivered by a man who didn't introduce himself and didn't wait for a signature on the spot — just handed over a leather folder and said someone would collect it, signed, by five that evening.I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold and read through forty pages of legal language built, as far as I could tell, to make absolutely sure I understood I was getting nothing I wasn't explicitly given. A prenuptial agreement that protected every Rosetti asset down to the silverware. A confidentiality clause with penalties steep enough to make my hands sweat reading them. A minimum term — three years — and the narrow list of conditions under which either of us could ask out ear

I woke up on my wedding morning in a guest suite the size of my entire childhood home, in a bed with sheets that probably cost more than my last paycheck, and stared at the ceiling for a long time before I let myself get up.My mother had stayed the night — a small mercy Damiano had arranged without being asked, a car sent for her the evening before so she wouldn't have to make the drive alone. I hadn't expected the gesture. I wasn't sure what to do with the fact that it had moved me."You look pale," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her robe, watching me with the particular sharpness only a mother could manage. "Are you sure about this? Even now. It's not too late.""It is, actually." I tried to smile. "The debt's already gone, Mom. He cleared it the day I signed. There's no version of today where I back out and we're not in exactly the trouble we were in three weeks ago, except worse, because now he knows we tried to use him.""That's not what I asked."I looked do

I didn't sleep that first night in the Rosetti estate — not in the way I meant to, anyway. I lay in a bedroom three times the size of my childhood bedroom, in a bed that still smelled faintly of fresh linen and nothing of my own life, and listened to the house breathe around me: distant footsteps, a phone ringing somewhere on a floor below, the low murmur of men's voices that never quite resolved into words I could make out.Somewhere in that house, my husband — the word still felt foreign in my mouth, even silently — was awake too, working the phones, trying to find out who had run his mother off the road on the night of our wedding.By the time the sun came up, gray and indifferent through curtains heavier than any I'd ever owned, I'd made a decision. I wasn't going to be the kind of wife who waited in a bedroom for information to be handed to her. I'd spent my whole life being told what I didn't need to know, didn't need to worry about, wasn't equipped to handle. I was done with t

The photograph had been taken three weeks before I'd ever heard the name Rosetti — before the men in suits, before the study, before any of this had touched my life at all. I was wearing my diner uniform, hair scraped back, exhausted, completely unaware that a camera somewhere had captured the most ordinary moment of an ordinary day."Who sent this?" I asked, my voice tighter than I wanted it to be."Unknown number. Untraceable, probably, but I'll have someone try." Damiano's jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes scanning the image like he could extract information from it through sheer force of will. "Three weeks ago. That's before your father's debt was even mentioned to you.""You're saying someone was watching me before I knew I owed anyone anything.""I'm saying someone knew this marriage was coming before either of us did." He set the phone down carefully, like the device itself had become dangerous. "My uncle has had eyes on this family for years. If he had eyes on you before